The US State Department this past week released its yearly, “Trafficking in Persons Report.” China received an automatic downgrade to the lowest ranking, Tier 3, for being a destination country for sex-trafficking.

The State Department acknowledged the one-child policy as the “key source of demand” for sex-trafficking and forced prostitution within the country, but remained silent regarding the abolition of the harmful policy in its list of policy recommendations for China.

Specifically the State Department’s TIP report said:

‘The Chinese government’s birth limitation policy and a cultural preference for sons, create a skewed sex ratio of 118 boys to 100 girls in China, which served as a key source of demand for the trafficking of foreign women as brides for Chinese men and forced prostitution. Women from Burma, Malaysia, Vietnam, and Mongolia are transported to China after being recruited through marriage brokers or fraudulent employment offers, wherethey are subsequently subjected to forced prostitution or forced labor… Traffickers recruited girls and young women, often rural areas of China, using a combination of fraudulent job offers, imposition of large travel fees,and threats of physical or financial harm to obtain and maintain their service in prostitution.’ State Department 2013 TIP Report pages 157-158 (emphasis added)

The one-child policy came into effect in 1979 in an attempt to stabilize the country’s population. Now, a generation later, the policy has caused sex-selective abortion and infanticide within the country on a gargantuan scale. Due to the policy, there are currently 37,000,000 more males than females in China — that’s about the entire population of California.

The one-child policy created the shortage of females which currently fuels the demand for prostitution and sex-trafficking within China.

The State Department reported that women and girls are currently being trafficked into China from the neighboring countries of Burma and Vietnam. However, Vietnam also has an imbalanced sex-ratio due to sex-selective abortions, and Burma has just imposed a two-child policy on it’s Rohingya population. If current trends continue, sex-trafficking in the region will only deteriorate.

“China has become the sex and labor trafficking capital of the world,” said U.S. Rep. Chris Smith , the prime author of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act.

“As a direct consequence of the barbaric one child per couple policy in effect since 1979, China has become the global magnate for sex traffickers,” Smith said. “Women and young girls have been—and are today being—reduced to commodities and coerced into prostitution. Without serious and sustained action by Beijing, it is only going to get worse.”

Smith said that “because tens of millions of girls have been systematically killed by sex selection abortion over the past three decades—resulting in an unprecedented number ‘missing’ women and girls—demand for prostituted women and “brides” is exploding in China.

President Barack Obama, now has 45-90 days to decide on a course of action for the offending countries — including invoking sanctions against China.

The State Department needs to recommend that China revoke the one-child policy. Repealing the policy will not heal the wounds already inflicted upon China, nor restore the innocence of the trafficked girls, but revoking the policy will stop the spread of the demographic disease which currently ravages China and its neighbors.